Now and then, I pick up a book and I can’t put it down until I read the last sentence. There’s something about the way the story was concocted, like a love potion, that entrances me into living a powerful journey. I yearn for the kind of books that make you forget that you are reading. These books made me feel like that, and I hope you love them as much as I do…
We Were Liars by E. Lockhart (2014). The perfect Sinclair family own a private island, where they spend every summer. On summer fifteen, the four main characters Cadence, Johnny, Gat and Mirren make a horrible mistake trying to fix a family rif which resulted in Candece suffering a blow to head and having amnesia. Now, on Summer Seventeen, Cadence goes back to meet up with the Liars at the island and piece together what they did two years ago to face the horrible reality that she has been suppressing.
“We are liars. We are beautiful and privileged. We are cracked and broken.”
Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger (2009). Julia and Valentina are identical mirror twins, who live with their mother Edwina in Illinois. They have never been apart and have always done everything together, with Julia as the alpha. When their mother’s twin sister, Elspeth, dies and leaves them her flat in London, the twins embark on a journey to their independence. But, Edwina and Elspeth have not spoken for many years to protect a secret they have kept from everyone, including Julia and Valentina. This secret not only affects the younger twin’s relationship to each other, and to their mother and aunt, but it puts Valentina’s soul in danger.
“Tyger! Tyger! burning bright / In the forests of the night, / What immortal hand or eye / Could frame thy fearful symmetry?”
Girl Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen (1993). This book is memoir in which the author relives her experiences as a young woman in a psychatric hospital in the 1960s, when she was diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder. After trying to commit suicide, Susanna is admitted into a psychiatric hospital in Boston for 18 months. Here she meets other women, who have been diagnosed with several other disorders. This experience provides us with the author’s analysis of mental illness, the definition of “normal”, and the psychiatric standard of care, all with an interesting myriad of short events that are out of order and personal reflections.
“Have you ever confused a dream with life? Or stolen something when you have the cash? Have you ever been blue? Or thought your train moving while sitting still? Maybe I was just crazy. Maybe it was the 60’s. Or maybe I was just a girl… interrupted.”